A Muslim Convert Once More

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   Mawlana Wahshi Kirmani ( q.s. ) wrote:   “Every heart that is not aflame is no heart; A frozen heart is nothing but a handful of clay. O God!   Give me a breast that sets ablaze, And in that breast a heart and that heart consumed with fire.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   Shaykh Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Musa al-Wasithi ( q.s. ) spoke excellently saying, “The closest thing to abomination is he who attends the self and whoever considers the self’s beautiful actions to be beautiful and meritorious because that habit will necessarily lead to him approving of those actions of the self that are offensive.”

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   Imam Abu al-Qasim al-Junayd ibn Muhammad al-Baghdadi ( q.s. ) visited Shaykh Abu al-Hasan Sirri ibn Mughallis as-Saqathi ( q.s. ) and found him in a state of contraction.   He asked, “What is wrong, Shaykh ?   Why are you in contraction?”   He replied, “A young man came to me and asked me, ‘What is the reality of repentance?’   I told him, ‘That you do not forget your wrong action.’   The young man said, ‘Rather repentance is that you forget your wrong action.’   Then he left me.”   Imam Junayd ( q.s. ) continued, “I said, ‘What the young man said is correct, because when I was in a state of concealment and then He Moved me to witnessing purity, remembering concealment in the state of purity is concealment.’”   Shaykh Sirri ( q.s. ) looked at the people of the beginning while Imam Junayd ( q.s. ) looked at the people of the end.   Each is correct, and Allah ( s.w.t. ) knows best.

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Shaykh Shahab ad-Din Abu al-‘Abbas Ahmad ibn ‘Umar al-Mursi ( q.s. ) said,  “ When the common people are frightened, they fear.   When they are made hopeful, they hope.   When the elite are frightened, they hope, and when they are given hope, they fear.”   Shaykh Taj ad-Din Abu al-Fadhl Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Atha’illah as-Sakandari ( q.s. ) said, in Latha’if al-Minan , “The meaning of these words of the shaykh , is that the common people stop with the outward business.   So when they are frightened, they fear since they cannot pass beyond the expression by the light of understanding which the people of Allah possess.   When the people of Allah are frightened, they hope, knowing that beyond their fear and beyond their fear are the attributes of the One they hope for.   One must not despair of His Mercy nor give up hope of His Grace.   So they, therefore, strive for the qualities of His Generosity, knowing...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ The following is a transcript of a discourse given by Mawlana Wafi’ Muhammad.   Allah ( s.w.t. ) Says:   سُوۡرَةُ الاٴنفَال … وَٱعۡلَمُوٓاْ أَنَّ ٱللَّهَ يَحُولُ بَيۡنَ ٱلۡمَرۡءِ وَقَلۡبِهِۦ وَأَنَّهُ ۥۤ إِلَيۡهِ تُحۡشَرُونَ (٢٤)   … and know that Allah Comes in between a man and his heart, and that it is He to whom you shall (all) be Gathered. (Surah al-Anfal:24)   What does this mean?  Only Allah ( s.w.t. ) really knows; but what we can take from it is that Allah ( s.w.t. ) is with us and He is inside of us in a way that He Alone knows; and He is even Closer to us than our life veins.   سُوۡرَةُ الاٴعرَاف وَهُوَ ٱلَّذِى يُرۡسِلُ ٱلرِّيَـٰحَ بُشۡرَۢا بَيۡنَ يَدَىۡ رَحۡمَتِهِۦ‌ۖ حَتَّىٰٓ إِذَآ أَقَلَّتۡ سَحَابً۬ا ثِقَالاً۬ سُقۡنَـٰهُ لِبَلَدٍ۬ مَّيِّتٍ۬ فَأَنزَلۡنَا بِهِ ٱلۡمَآءَ فَأَخۡرَجۡنَا بِهِۦ مِن كُلِّ ٱلثَّمَرَٲتِ‌ۚ كَذَٲلِكَ نُخۡرِجُ ٱلۡمَوۡتَىٰ لَعَلَّكُمۡ تَذَڪَّرُونَ (٥٧) وَٱلۡبَلَدُ ٱلطَّ...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   Dr. Colin Turner wrote, “By God, as Muslims our enemy is not the West; our enemy is not the USA or Europe or Russia or China; as Muslims our enemy is not capitalism or poverty or the questionable morals of modernity.   By God, as Muslims our misfortunes are not caused by this or that external force, or this or that external cause.   Our problems are not the result of colonialism and imperialism, of failed ideologies such as socialism and communism.   By God, our enemy is none of these.   As Muslims, we should not look outside our own community and experience for scapegoats, because by God it is a digression.   We Muslims are our own worst enemies.   We are beset by ignorance, by spiritual detachment from God, by a chronic aversion to critical thinking.   We are beset by religious externalism, by dry, hide-bound legalism and jurisprudential superficiality.   We are beset by sectarian hatred, by racism ...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ The following is taken from the sixteenth discourse of Shaykh Muhyi ad-Din Abu Muhammad ibn Abu Swalih ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani ( q.s. ), as recorded in Futuh al-Ghayb .   Shaykh ‘Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani ( q.s. ) said, “Nothing blocks you from directly receiving Allah’s ( s.w.t. ) Grace and Favour except your reliance upon people and connections, on good turns and handouts.   Thus, creatures are your obstacle to gaining a proper livelihood, in keeping with the exemplary practice of the Prophet ( s.a.w. ).   As long as you continue to depend on fellow creatures, hoping for their gifts and favours, going from door to door with your requests, you are associating His Creation with Allah ( s.w.t. ).   He will, therefore, Punish you with deprivation of that proper livelihood, namely the lawful earnings of this world.   Then, when you have renounced the habit of depending on people and associating them with your Lord, and have ...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   All our eager young scholars with their turbans and ijazat , accompanied by their gaggle, or being a groupie to our shuyukh have to remember that it is easy to be a “ shaykh ” or an “ ustadz ” when everybody wants to listen to you, when everybody is in awe of some pithy word of wisdom.   But can they be a brother when all the people need is a friend?   Can they show them God when they think religion has failed them?   Or when their experience with “people of religion” have broken hem?   That is why scholars of books can only speak to the converted.   To these scholars, everybody who does not acknowledge their superiority is going to Hell.   Real da’wah is to bathe in the mud, to drink the bitter wine and to call people back to the caravan of hope when the dogs are still barking.   The shari’ah and the forms of religion are meant to be a means, a ladder to the heights.   But some people have made ...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ The following is an article by Dr. William C. Chittick.   By “the Islamic intellectual heritage” I mean the ways of thinking about God, the world, and the human being established by the Qur’an and the Prophet ( s.a.w. ), and elaborated upon by generations of practising Muslims.   I use the term “intellectual” to translate the word “ ‘aqli ”, and by it, I want to distinguish this heritage from another, closely related heritage that also has theoretical and intellectual dimensions.   This second heritage is the “transmitted”, “ naqli ”, heritage.   Transmitted knowledge is learned by “imitation”, “ taqlid ”, that is, by following the authority of those who possess it.   This sort of knowledge includes Qur’an recitation, ahadits , Arabic grammar, and jurisprudence.   It is impossible to be a Muslim without taqlid , because one cannot discover the Qur’an or the practices of the shari’ah by oneself.   Just as langu...